Recognizing Our Ego

Egoism. Is it good? Is it bad? Is it who I am? Before we can come to any conclusions about ego, we need to be able to see it in action in ourselves. But ego is not easy to see because it blends so well into and behind our inner scenery that it virtually disappears. It stands behind the camera of consciousness, the camera of our life, pointing, focusing, acting, directing, and narrating as if it was us. And indeed, we allow our ego to take our place, to live our life for us, because we do not see it and thus have no idea that there is another way to be.

Living from ego is our default mode as we emerge into young adulthood, with a self that is formed well enough to enable us to navigate our life, but is also typically problematic and rarely questioned on its fundamentals. Yet that ego self is not the only option for navigating life. Ego is a particular orientation of our personality, the remarkable collection of habits, skills, interests, and quirks that populate our mental and emotional inner life. The spiritual path is in part about changing the orientation of our personality to serve our Real I rather than serving our self-centered ego.

One of the primary characteristics of ego is the implicit attitude that I am the center of the universe. All its other features flow from that fundamental illusion. Once we begin to look for that attitude in action in us, we begin to notice it. We see how our mind and emotions tend to consider every event from our personal viewpoint, either how it might affect us or what we feel or think about it. This self-centered orientation has its upsides certainly. In evolutionary terms, self-centeredness serves the biological imperatives of survival and procreation. It comes to us as part of our equipment for life. But that pertains mainly to our body and we are more than our body. Self-centeredness infects higher aspects of our psyche, where it destroys possibilities. It can even be harmful with respect to our biological imperative, by stopping us from cooperating with others as well as we might.

Spiritually, egoism is devastating, blocking the flow from the sacred into us, in two ways. Egoism usurps the will of our Real I and replaces it with a self-centered will. Real I is directly part of the higher, sacred will that connects us with All, while ego cuts us off, leaving us separate and alone and excessively self-important. When ego says I, it means this body and its contents. In the world of bodies, separateness is inescapable. As a secondary effect, separateness keeps us from opening to higher energies, which we desperately need for a fulfilling life, for a loving life. When ego prays, it goes no further than asking for material needs and fulfillment of desires for ourselves, and perhaps our family. Ego prayer does not address reconnecting with the Sacred, for that would be the death of our self-centeredness.

How can we work with this ego issue? It comes down to clear seeing and letting go. Many practices support that. For example, we can work with our likes and dislikes. Choosing something we like and going without it for a while illuminates our attachment, and attachments are the stuff of ego. Choosing something we dislike and temporarily engaging in it despite disliking has a similar effect. Such efforts create a force field between the desire and the non-desire, a force that enables us to see. We aim to not be controlled by our likes and dislikes. Notice that we are not trying to rid ourselves of likes and dislikes, because that would turn us into automatons and make life much less interesting and enjoyable. The issue is freedom, the real freedom to choose or forgo something we like or dislike.

Imagine you have decided to stop chewing gum for a week. Then the impulse to reach for some gum arises out of nowhere. But because you have decided not to do that, you notice that impulse. Then you realize it is just a passing and habitual physical impulse that you need not act on. You see it come and let it pass on its own, despite whatever force of attachment it exerts on you. No rejection. Just letting it go. That habitual impulse does not define you, does not control you, and is not who you are. After a week you allow yourself to chew gum again, but this time with a little more freedom.

A subset of the likes and dislikes work is bearing the unpleasant manifestations of other people, to use Gurdjieff's phrase. Someone is doing something unpleasant, and we notice our mind automatically criticizing and rejecting them. This noticing gives us a chance to let that impulse to criticize them pass without believing it, without believing that it speaks for us. We see that this inner critic is not who we are. It is just a passing mental-emotional impulse. When we forgo adopting that critical stance, we open the door to seeing that we have the same tendency that the other person has, that we have at times acted in nearly the same way. Letting the criticism pass without it taking hold of us, weakens the influence of our ego. Seeing that we have the same unpleasant tendency that the other person has chips away at our ego. In the same way, if in reviewing our own past actions, we see instances where we acted in ways we should not have, we feel remorse, which also weakens our egoism.

The thread that ties such practices together is the seeing and letting go. We let go of our rejection of ourselves or parts of ourselves. We see our thoughts going on and on, saying I want this, and I don't want that. We recognize this as the apparatus of egoism, the ongoing creation of the illusion that our ego exists as a real thing, and that we are that thing. When we come into the silence behind our thoughts, we see that the thought I is not who we are, that we do not need our thoughts for us to be, and that we don't need our egoistic self-centeredness for us to be. We can be in the stillness, letting the self-centered thoughts, emotions, and impulses arise and pass by without our identifying with them. We are free and alive and connected.

The practice of presence is key in working to be free of egoism. Simple presence just is. Our Real I is the centerless one who is present. The apparatus of our personality, the thoughts, emotions, and impulses arising automatically, is no longer in control. In the same way that we see that we are not our body, we can now see that we are not our personality. In the same way that we see that our body is a wonderful instrument for us, we can now see our personality as our instrument and not as our master. We accept ourselves totally with a new inner orientation that leaves us free and alive and connected.

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